LETTER VI.

April 16, 1740.

You could not give me more pleasure than by your short letter, which acquaints me that I may hope to see you so soon. Let us meet like men who

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for it, which is built on an hypothesis of his own. 'You know,' says he, they were translated by a Frenchman, from an original Arabic manuscript, in the King of France's Library; but there is not above one tenth of the original translated. The Arabian collector appears to have been a man of little taste; for in order to give a due connexion to the whole, he has laid the scene of his narration in the most flourishing state of that Empire for Arts, Learning, Power, and has at the same time introduced into it fables concerning things which happened above a thousand years after, just as if one should suppose a story to be told in the reign of William the Conqueror, which related to George I. Now,' continued he, the noblest fables in the collection fell in naturally with the scene which he has laid, so that they are transcribed from the works of some famous author in those days, and the rest, which you speak of as poor and trifling, are taken from some later fabulists, who had neither invention to contrive nor thought enough to give a sense and meaning to their stories.' -He added, that from the Arabian tables, you might gather the completest notion of the Eastern ceremonies and manners.' -Mr. Pope communicated to Mr. Warburton, Lord Bolingbroke's rules for the reading of History, which he thinks a very fine performance. That treatise, and the account of his own times, are to be published together, after his death. In short, Mr. Warburton declares he never spent a fortnight so agreeably any where as at Twickenham: he was presented to all Mr. Pope's friends, who entertained him with singular civility, and received him with an engaging freedom."

The modest and judicious estimate which our author himself gives in this letter, of his own talents and powers, is very striking and remarkable.

have been many years acquainted with each other1, and whose friendship is not to begin, but continue. All forms should be past, when people know each other's mind so well: I flatter myself you are a man after my own heart, who seeks content only from within, and says to greatness, Tuas habeto tibi res, egomet habebo meas. But as it is but just your other friends should have some part of you, I insist on my making you the first visit in London, and thence, after a few days, to carry you to Twitenham, for as many as you can afford me. If the press be to take up any part of your time, the sheets may be brought you hourly thither by my waterman: and you will have more leisure to attend to any thing of that sort than in town. I believe also I have most of the Books you can want, or can easily borrow them. I earnestly desire a line may be left at Mr. R's, where and when I shall call upon you, which I will daily enquire for, whether I chance to be here, or in the country. Believe me, Sir, with the truest regard, and the sincerest wish to deserve,

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Yours, etc.

This very first interview was in Lord Radnor's garden, just by Mr. Pope's at Twickenham. Dodsley was present; and was, he told me, astonished at the high compliments paid him by Pope as he approached him.

LETTER VII.

Twitenham, June 24, 1740.

Ir is true that I am a very unpunctual correspondent, though no unpunctual agent or friend; and that, in the commerce of words, I am both poor and lazy. Civility and Compliment generally are the goods that letter-writers exchange, which, with honest men, seems a kind of illicit trade, by having been for the most part carried on, and carried furthest by designing men. I am therefore reduced to plain inquiries, how my friend does, and what he does? and to repetitions, which I am afraid to tire him with, how much I love him. Your two kind letters

gave me real satisfaction, in hearing you were safe and well; and in shewing me you took kindly my unaffected endeavours to prove my esteem for you, and delight in your conversation. Indeed my languid state of health, and frequent deficiency of spirits, together with a number of dissipations, et aliena negotia centum, all conspire to throw a faintness and cool appearance over my conduct to those I best love; which I perpetually feel, and grieve at: but in earnest, no man is more deeply touched with merit in general, or with particular merit towards me, in any one. You ought therefore in both views to hold yourself what you are to me in my opinion and affection; so high in each, that I may perhaps seldom attempt to tell it you. The greatest justice, and favour too that you can do me, is to take it for granted.

Do not therefore commend my talents, but instruct me by your own. I am not really learned enough to be a judge in works of the nature and depth of yours. But I travel through your book as through an amazing scene of ancient Egypt or Greece; struck with veneration and wonder; but at every step wanting an instructor to tell me all I wish to know. Such you prove to me in the walks of antiquity; and such you will prove to all mankind but with this additional character, more than any other searcher into antiquities, that of a genius equal to your pains, and of a taste equal to your learning.

I am obliged greatly to you, for what you have projected at Cambridge, in relation to my Essay 3;

2 Mr. Pope desired the Editor to procure a good translation of the Essay on Man into Latin prose. W.

* The following is a Letter from our Author to Mr. Christopher Smart.

"SIR,

Twickenham, Nov. 18.

"I thank you for the favour of yours; I would not give you the trouble of translating the whole Essay you mention; the two first Epistles are already well done, and if you try, I could wish it were on the last, which is less abstracted, and more easily falls into poetry, and common place. A few lines at the beginning and the conclusion, will be sufficient for a trial whether you yourself can like the task or not. I believe the Essay on Criticism will in general be the more agreeable, both to a young writer, and to the majority of readers. What made me wish the other well done, was the want of a right understanding of the subject, which appears in the foreign versions, in two Italian, two French, and one German. There is one, indeed, in Latin verse, printed at Wirtemberg, very faithful, but inelegant; and another in French prose; but in these the spirit of poetry is as much lost, as the sense and system itself in the others. I ought to take this opportunity of acknowledging the Latin translation

but more for the motive which did originally, and does consequentially in a manner, animate all your goodness to me, the opinion you entertain of my honest intention in that piece, and your zeal to demonstrate me no irreligious man. I was very sincere with you in what I told you of my own opinion of my own character as a poet, and, I think, I may conscientiously say, I shall die in it. I have nothing to add, but that I hope sometimes to hear you are well, as you shall certainly now and then hear the best I can tell you of myself.

LETTER VIII.

October 27, 1740.

I AM grown so bad a correspondent, partly through the weakness of my eyes, which has much increased of late, and partly through other disagreeable accidents (almost peculiar to me), that my oldest as well as best friends are reasonable enough to excuse me. I know you are of the number who deserve all the testimonies of any sort, which I can give you of esteem and friendship; and I confide in you, as a man of candour enough, to know it cannot be other

of my Ode, which you sent me, and in which I could see little or nothing to alter; it is so exact. Believe me, Sir, equally desirous of doing you any service, and afraid of engaging you in an art so little profitable, though so well deserving, as good poetry.

"I am, your most obliged and sincere humble Servant, "A. POPE."